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2007 Census of Agriculture Finds More Farms

Columbia, MO – After completing a year-long effort to measure and
quantify the status of U.S. agriculture, the USDA-National Agricultural
Statistics Service (NASS) released the survey results today. The 2007
Agricultural Census for Missouri found some interesting results such as
the number of farms increasing by 1 percent from the 2002 count. “Higher
commodity prices have allowed many more operations to meet the minimum
farm definition of $1,000 of production or sales,” said Gene Danekas,
Director of Missouri Agricultural Statistics. “Couple that with
NASS’s extra effort to identify all types and sizes of agricultural
operations.” The Missouri farm count, at 107,825 is up more than
1,000 farms since the 2002 count with Missouri continuing to be ranked
second only to Texas in the number of agricultural operations.

The 2007 value of production is pegged at a record $7.51 billion dollars,
up nearly 51 percent from 2002, with crops sales accounting for 47 percent
and livestock accounting for the remaining 53 percent of total sales.
Expenditures for producing this level of output are measured at $6.14
billion, up more than $1.5 billion since 2002.

The 2007 Census includes some new ways to look at the State’s agriculture.
For 2007, Missouri’s farms were categorized by typology, the type
of farm by operator status. Missouri’s 107,825 farms are made up
of 40 percent lifestyle farms while 21 percent are categorized as retirement
farms. These two largest categories account for 13 percent of all agricultural
sales. Non-family corporations and other non-family type farms make up
less than 4 percent of all farms.

The value of the Census is in the data. The new Census contains valuable
insights into the value of agriculture to every county in the nation,
showing leading crop, and livestock production centers as well as demographic
data and expenditures of the operations. A complete review of today’s
report can be found at www.agcensus.usda.gov
and contains the most comprehensive analysis of agriculture at the county
level available. NASS has developed several easy-to-use tools that can
be used online or can be downloaded to enhance a user’s ability
to analyze almost any part of agriculture. For more information, visit
the website or call 800-551-1014 for additional information on Missouri
agriculture.